Can't play videos after update

[alexs]

alexs last edited by

Well, the special libffmpeg.so version is licensed under a license, and neither Opera nor Vivaldi pays for it, so they are not allowed to include this special libffmpeg.so with the installation.

But... Vivaldi has a very clever Linux programmer (Ruarí Ødegaard, former Opera employee), which is why the Vivaldi browser installation package contains a script called update-ffmpeg [1]. This script searches for the Vivaldi version, downloads the appropriate libffmpeg.so version, and copies it to /var/opt/vivaldi/media-codecs-xx.x/libffmpeg.so
Videos then work without any problems in Vivaldi.

Why doesn't this work with Opera? Perhaps it's because Opera doesn't have any programmers working on Linux, after all, there are many problems that only exist on Linux-based systems: Videos don't work, the Opera browser ignores the language of the operating system (only English), the browser does not remember the last window position.

About the videos that don't work for me (Debian/sid, Opera One: 122.0.5643.17):
I installed Vivaldi Stable and copied their working libffmpeg.so from /var/opt/vivaldi/media-codecs-120726/libffmpeg.so to /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/lib_extra/libffmpeg.so.
Alternatively, you can also use the current Snap version [2] of chromium-ffmpeg.

mkdir -p /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/lib_extra
copy /var/opt/vivaldi/media-codecs-120726/libffmpeg.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/lib_extra/libffmpeg.so

[1] https://pastebin.com/DYJZTkf1
[2] https://api.snapcraft.io/api/v1/snaps/download/XXzVIXswXKHqlUATPqGCj2w2l7BxosS8_82.snap

[presager]

presager @leocg last edited by

@leocg it's a .deb version that is standalone. I found it on Opera website and didn't integrate it iinto Linux Mint. Most of the videos are playing on this version so far. I also checked other system software and tried Opera Flatpak with no extensions, but it still didn't work.

[presager]

presager @leocg last edited by

@leocg I tried Chrome version and the standalone libffmpeg.so. Could not get the Flatpak version to play videos at all.

[presager]

presager last edited by

Thank you. This is Very helpful.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @alexs last edited by

@alexs Or, most probably, Opera thinks that even offering a script like that may have legal consequences.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @presager last edited by

@presager I asked about the Snap version because the Snap package usually includes the libraries necessary to play videos.

[alexs]

alexs @leocg last edited by

@leocg said in Can't play videos after update:

Or, most probably, Opera thinks that even offering a script like that may have legal consequences.

Now, it is mentioned here that Opera cannot make the library available for legal reasons.[1]
However, that does not mean that you are allowed to download it from a third-party source after installation in order to use it later. And that is exactly what the script does. An official statement from Opera would be more than helpful to explain why Opera users on Linux have to make the browser functional themselves, which is ridiculous.

[1] https://forums.opera.com/post/150324
[2] FFmpeg License and Legal Considerations

[gloewa]

gloewa @alexs last edited by

@alexs Are you kidding me? the linked opera-posting is from 2018!
Till few days ago all was as it should. The last update broke the video-functionality.

If opera is not able to fix it, its time to change to another browser. As simple as that.

Opera User since Version 3.x

[alexs]

alexs @gloewa last edited by alexs

@gloewa said in Can't play videos after update:

@alexs Are you kidding me? the linked opera-posting is from 2018!

That doesn't change the statement regarding the license.

@gloewa said:

Till few days ago all was as it should. The last update broke the video-functionality.
If opera is not able to fix it, its time to change to another browser. As simple as that.

I don't disagree with you. For me, I had to fix the video functionality myself once again.

Read https://forums.opera.com/post/392484

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

See https://github.com/flathub/com.opera.Opera/issues/205#issuecomment-3289581435. For the dependencies (libavcodec, libavformat, and libavutil), it looks like you need avcodec62, avformat62 and avutil60 now for some versions of libffmpeg.so. Make sure you have those versions or newer of those packages.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer @gloewa last edited by

@gloewa said in Can't play videos after update:

previous versions of opera could play videos, current version

A libffmpeg.so only works with a specific major version of Chromium. So, any time Opera starts using a new major version of Chromium, you have to update to a new libffmpeg.so that's based on that new major version of Chromium.

Historically, Opera started using a new major version of Chromium every time Opera updated to a new major version itself. So, you had to find a new libffmpeg.so each time Opera updated to a new major version (102 to 103 for example). In addition, since Opera Beta was a major version ahead of Opera Stable and Opera Developer was 2 major versions ahead, you'd need a different libffmpeg.so for beta and a different one for developer.

However, for a while now, Opera has been been slower on updating to new major versions of Chromium, so a libffmpeg.so's compatibility has been lasting a bit longer. But, libffmpeg.so still needs to be updated eventually.

Now, for the Snap package of Opera and the Snap libffmpeg.so it uses, it has slots for multiple major versions of Opera, which can make it so you don't have to worry about compatibility most of the time and stuff just works. So, try the Snap version of Opera if you want. Also, some users that don't use the Snap package of Opera put a symlink to the snap libffmpeg.so in Opera's "lib_extra" folder and have had good luck.

For the Flatpak package of Opera, the maintainer tries to make sure all is good with a compatible libffmeg.so, but sometimes it can go wrong.

If you don't want to deal with any of that though, it's best to use a different browser.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

For the Flatpak package, see https://github.com/flathub/com.opera.Opera/issues/205#issuecomment-3291058932. Update coming soon.

[gloewa]

gloewa @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 Thank you for all the information. That's very kind of you.

I solved the problem for now by copying libffmpeg.so from the Vivaldi directory to the Opera directory. Now everything is working as usual again.

Opera User since Version 3.x

[valour47]

valour47 last edited by

https://github.com/Ld-Hagen/fix-opera-linux-ffmpeg-widevine

this is what helped me every time this happend

[gloewa]

gloewa @valour47 last edited by

@valour47 Thanks for your Info. I solved the problem for now by copying libffmpeg.so from the Vivaldi directory to the Opera directory. Now everything is working as usual again.

Opera User since Version 3.x

[3333e]

3333e last edited by

@Opera-QA-Team
As I said at somewhere, opera has wrong LD_PRELOAD for buldled ffmpeg.
We can load newer version of ffmpeg (with same avcodec soname) if opera fixed the bug without violating with EULA. Please stop LD_PRELOAD.

[3333e]

3333e @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 Also needed to remove bundled .so to take avcodec based approach due to LD_PRELOAD bug.

ABI info is completely masked at unified .so (extractable from source code) and major ver of avcodec could be bumped even major ver of Chromium is not bumped.

[gloewa]

gloewa @3333e last edited by

@3333e Thanks for the info. But my solution posted above is to me - as user - much more simpler ...

Opera User since Version 3.x

[3333e]

3333e @gloewa last edited by

@gloewa Copying random version from random place is not a reproducible solution.